Recorded Memories

Tony & Olwyn Taylor and Diane Elliott Interview October 1998.
 

Work, Life and Friendship:

‘I’ve always liked working in the village…we’ve had a good life…and a nice lot of friends’

 
Joanna Lumley arrived in a helicopter (for the opening of Couture’s new purpose-built factory)
‘she wore the 7 denier tights – the 1-hour tights’

Diane having moved from Leicester to live in Earl Shilton worked in various local factory offices over the years including (hosiery and boot and shoe) – Minard’s, Abbot’s, manager of the canteen at Samuel Davies, Ward’s, Eatough’s, Couture Marketing, finishing her working life at Lucas’s . Tony commented that he wouldn’t want to go back into the knitting. Earl Shilton and Barwell had a varied amount of factories both boot and shoe and hosiery. Toon’s was a big factory in Earl Shilton. Eileen Toon married Arthur Godfrey, who was a manager at Toon’s and Arthur was John Brindley’s uncle. Olwyn mentioned that it was very difficult to get an extra week off from work – the reason being it threw the production line out. While working on the Komet knitting machines at Atkins knitters were allowed 10 needles a week, any extra had to be paid for out of a knitters wage. He did shift work and hours were 6am to 3pm and 3pm to 12pm. He remembers Percy Taylor’s hiring a train to take staff and workers to London for the day and going to see South Pacific. Couture held a Christmas party at the Hinckley Knight. At Pex as part of the Christmas festivities they were all given a bottle of wine which had to be signed for.

At Couture a party was held for the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. When Couture had the official opening of the new building the grounds had to be spotless and thoroughly checked by the police in readiness for the arrival of ‘Fergie’ and the Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire. Diane seems to think they made 80 different colours of tights and she made flowers using all the colours which were placed in a basket on reception. During the opening event filming also took place for Midlands Today and all the staff including Diane, who remarked, ‘I was quite old, oldest there by a long chalk’. There were also quite a few ‘dolly birds’ and they wanted everyone to wear a different colour tights, Diane wore navy. Everyone had to sit in a certain way to show off the tights – all the cameras were set up – but the colours were wrong, they eventually did do the filming in reception. ‘We had quite a little day, that day.’ Joanna Lumley arrived by helicopter and landed in the school field which was opposite the factory and she wore the ‘7denier tights – the so-called ‘1 hour tights’ because that’s how long they lasted. They also had Bill Maynard who did a promotional video. A saying at the factory was ‘We only employ the best because we are the best’. They made tights for Dior.  

Olwyn took eight years out of her working life when boys were young and the reason for going back to work part time at Wards (boot and shoe) was because Tony was about to go on the dole. Her wage helped to keep things ‘ticking over’ and she continued to work full time until her retirement in the mid 1990s. When fully fashioned stockings were going out (Percy Tayors) Tony was getting every other Friday off from work and they would drop the boys off at school and drive into Leicester in their ‘little Ford Prefect’ for the day. Tony and Olwyn feel they have always accepted life and enjoyed life, they always took the boys on walks and picnics in the ‘reccy’ and now they take their grandchildren. Diane’s husband has recently died and after Tony had his heart attack both he and Olywn have had to slow down. Tony and Olwyn have known Diane for many years and have been a great support to each other and all agree that friendship is very important. In the area where they live, Elmesthorpe Lane, there are still about a dozen people who have lived in the same houses since they were built.

With the closure of Nicholls and Wileman, Olwyn and two friends went to work at Pex together and they still live in the village. Olwyn feels the hosiery has always been a ‘ratrace’ – ‘I was packing, the end of the line, you’d got to keep up, going fast especially on a Friday when the orders had got to be out, especially Christmas – Christmas was the time’. January and February were slacker, especially February. Although Olwyn was glad to retire it still took a while getting used to not having to leave the house at 7 o’clock every morning. She still visits Pex to buy socks. They talked about how up until quite recently (at time of interview) young people were still tied to lamp posts, thrown into skips and taken all round the factory and sometimes dressed in fancy dress before getting married. Birthdays were always celebrated – streamers and balloons put up and birthday cards put up and there was always a cake. At Christmas there were always lots of decorations and a Christmas tree and the girls would go down to a local pub before finishing off their Christmas shopping. Diane’s husband took early retirement because the factory closed down and Diane carried on working until pensionable age and he did all the housework. Olwyn was made redundant from Nicholls and Wileman about 20 years ago and at this time she was earning about £118 a week and she came out with a couple of thousand pounds in redundancy. She was also made redundant from Pex but the wages varied – she was on a machine with four other girls, packing. The tights were pulled on a machine which went around and the tights were heated up to keep their shape – ‘I put them on, the next one took them off, the next one packed them and the next one put them in a big box‘ and they ‘pooled’ their money. This was the last big job that Olwyn did. This was called a Booton machine and used in the final operation in the production of tights. Olwyn had first learned to use this machine at Nicholls and Wileman where two operatives were involved in the process – one person pulled the tights on and one person took them off and then examined the tights and folded them and someone else in a different room packed them. She had worked on this machine for six years until a number of Pakistani men were employed at the factory. It was Olwyn’s job to teach these men to use the Booton packing machine and ‘they more or less took the jobs off us…they did shifts’. Olwyn went to work on a table and found that she did better on her own, she could stop a bit more – when you worked with a machine – ‘you had to keep up with the machine’. She remarked that ‘you always had to be versatile in a factory’. Olwyn enjoyed going to work but she enjoys being retired – ‘I second that, dear!’